Prologue: Game Mechanics
Subject: Hello?
Date: September 17, 2022
Well... we kind of got kicked out of the server before you could finish. But you gave me this email and told me to send you a message, so here it is.
I probably forgot a few of the things you said... Mainly because you were trying to cram everything into the minute we had. It would help me out if you just started over. If it was anyone else I would hate to ask for a full rundown, but I've seen you type before. You could probably write this message out ten times before I could do it once.
Anyways... yeah. Hopefully you get this.
-Kirito
Subject: The Aincrad Journal
Date: September 17, 2022
Yeah, you got the email correct. At least you remembered that.
In hindsight I guess I was trying to rush a little bit, but I definitely told you all of the main points while we were still logged in. But if you want a full rundown, that's just fine. I can explain a bit of the finer details of this contract to you, so you know exactly what it is that you're agreeing to, if you do in fact choose to agree to it.
Okay, so here's the TL;DR: I keep you up to date about all things SAO, you owe me 5,000 col after the game releases.
Now here's the juicy stuff.
As Kayaba is adding finishing touches to SAO, he has to let other people know what he wants them to do. He designs everything by himself, but he delegates minor things to other people. He only has so much time, and he wants to be using that working on the most important parts of the game. I know for a fact that he personally worked on the combat system and the AI of the mobs, and didn't let anyone else anywhere near those things. Same goes for the design of the NerveGear. He did that by himself, and didn't have anyone else help him at all.
Unfortunately for him, whenever he lets anyone else help him with something, or if anyone else sees what he's working on, they post about it in a blog. These people want to seem like they're important Argus employees, so they post about stuff that they shouldn't. Usually it gets taken down once one of the higher ups finds it, but while it's still there I find them and get free info out of it. This is how I get the majority of my information. You could probably find everything yourself if you were looking, but it's more convenient just getting a short email about it, isn't it?
Me sending these bits of information should give you a good head start for the game, which will let you get ahead of the pack even earlier than you normally would. And all I'm asking in return is a bit of the spoils of that early lead. I wouldn't make you pay for something that's common knowledge. That's just bad business, and it would give me a bad rep. And in my line of work, having a bad reputation is something that I can't afford.
Me sending you the things that aren't common knowledge is what makes this a fair deal. And I'm not even asking for that much, am I? 5,000 col was pocket change after two weeks of playing. I'm sure if it was you, you could pay it to me by the end of the first day. Especially if you head straight for Horunka and finish the Anneal Blade quest. If they don't change it, that'll give you 4,000 of it right there.
If you want to do this, tell me. If you don't, that's fine too. Just don't be stupid and try to hold out on me after the game launches if you accept. It wouldn't be hard to find a few PvPers to send after you, and I could collect the 5,000 that way. With interest, of course. But if any of what you showed me in the beta is actually who you are, I know you won't do that. Hopefully that's the way it is.
-Argo
Subject: The Aincrad Journal?
Date: September 17, 2022
That sounds like a pretty good deal. Not the PKing me part, but the rest of it sounds awesome.
I'm definitely interested in those developer leaks you were talking about. Anything about the game that I should know that I probably don't? I felt like you were always three steps ahead of me in understanding the mechanics... Unless of course that will cost extra - if that's the case then keep the info.
I'll accept the terms, but just to be clear... how long do I have to pay the 5,000 col before you start trying to kill me?
-Kirito
Subject: The Aincrad Journal
Date: September 17, 2022
Alright. Since you accepted, I'll answer your questions.
When you hit level ten, I expect to be paid. If I'm not online when that happens and you go past level ten, that's fine. If I see you leveling up, your debt will be doubled for every level you don't pay me. If your debt is doubled more than twice I'm going to assume you aren't paying. Clear enough?
As for your other question, the only thing that comes to mind is the learning AI. Every mob that you encountered, no matter how simple, would grow as they were fought. Mobs that weren't defeated would stay at the new level of intelligence, and if that happened for the same mob often enough they would eventually be just as intelligent as a player would in a fight. They would know to attack while you're executing a sword skill, and would know to only use skills when you aren't in a position to block or dodge.
Remember how the boss on the sixth floor was a lot more difficult to handle than the boss on the seventh floor? It was because someone found their way to the boss room and challenged the boss with two parties of six. They wiped, and the boss figured out what switching was and how to look for it. The first time someone tried to switch they took massive damage immediately because the boss learned the mechanic.
It also looked like mobs were becoming more intelligent overall as we climbed, but I can't confirm that for a fact. If it's true then the higher we go, the less they have to learn and the more they already know. Mobs like that would make the level gap pretty useless if players aren't careful.
That's all that I knew that you probably didn't. I'll send you more stuff as I learn about it. If you have any more questions, depending on if you should know it or not, it'll cost you extra col. That first one was a freebie.
-Argo
Subject: The Aincrad Journal
Date: September 17, 2022
Wow... a learning AI? That explains a few things...
I'll definitely pay you as soon as I hit level ten. Probably before I hit ten, actually.
-Kirito
Subject: Focusing System
Date: September 28, 2022
Since the game is technically already complete, Kayaba is delegating a lot less work, so these will be more infrequent than I thought. Sorry about that. Thankfully though, the people working under Kayaba are idiots and are still posting about what he's working on.
Apparently he's putting the finishing touches on an upgrade to the focusing system. Before, all it would really do is determine if a player was looking at something, and then render it in complete detail to reduce strain on the system. Now he made it so that you can target and inspect mobs from a distance, open your menu and work through it without lifting a finger, and send messages without using your hands to type. I'm betting that the last part isn't as fast as normally typing, but it's still a useful feature. Especially if you're in combat with trash mobs and can focus half of your attention on something else.
-Argo
Subject: Focusing System?
Date: September 28, 2022
If you can pop a cursor from a distance and see what shade of red or yellow it is, doesn't that make tracking useless?
-Kirito
Subject: Focusing System
Date: September 28, 2022
Actually, yeah.
If you can pop a cursor from a distance with this new targeting system, searching is the way to go. Tracking determined how effectively you could see the creatures around you, and searching allowed you to find hidden creatures. But searching also gave a boost in how far you could see. Seeing that the shade of the cursor was darker and that you probably shouldn't try to fight it by yourself was really useful, and seeing it from farther away is definitely better than tracking your way to that deadly mob.
With this new system tracking is effectively useless, unless it has another feature as it gets leveled up more.
-Argo
Subject: Refund?
Date: October 16, 2022
I just got the money for my SAO preorder returned... did you?
-Kirito
Subject: Refund
Date: October 16, 2022
Yeah.
-Argo
Subject: Refund?
Date: October 16, 2022
How bad a sign is that?
-Kirito
Subject: Refund
Date: October 16, 2022
Very.
Kayaba wants to make the virtual world every bit as perfect as the real world. As it was before, Aincrad was missing a few things. There wasn't any wind, there wasn't any dust, water never quite felt right, the temperature was always standardized per floor, the skin of every player was always as smooth as a newborn's bottom... the list goes on and on. He wants to change everything to how it is in the real world. He wants to add in dust and wind, add more detail to character models, fix the interactions with water, and actually have a varying temperatures, among other things.
It all sounds great, but given the current limitations on technology it's a long ways down the road. Improving electronics enough to get all of that done without overloading any system, and then mass producing it for the public, would take any normal person at least ten years. Kayaba is not a normal person though. He designed the NerveGear in half a year, and that was a massive step forward for technology as a whole. If he wanted advance everything that the world uses, which would in turn allow him to design the FullDive technology up to his new standards, it would probably take him a minimum of three years.
On top of that, he would need to completely recode Aincrad to fit the new tech, and that would make the game even more massive than it already was. Allegedly it took Kayaba an entire ten years to get SAO coded. If it was an even bigger version, we can assume that it will take even longer if he is unable to reuse anything already done. But I'm honestly not sure how coding works. I'm not an expert, and I don't intend to be one any time soon. How long it will take to upgrade the game is beyond my knowledge.
On top of already needing to write more code to make SAO more detailed, he also apparently wants to make extensive changes to the combat system of the game. And then he wants to make the AI even better than it already is. Apparently he also wants to make it so that NPCs can actually hold conversations with players. Nobody knows how long getting both of those done will take. The combat system was already pretty complex as it was, so improving it even more is going to make for some pretty amazing gameplay. And being able to actually talk to a program? If he can pull that off that'll be amazing too. But all of that will significantly delay the release of the game.
There is some good news.
Kayaba said that he requested the assistance of one of his old friends, who is apparently every bit a genius as he is. This friend reluctantly accepted, which means that the time would be cut in half, if Kayaba isn't simply talking this friend up (which he isn't known to do - quite the opposite in fact). If the two of them work separately and at the same pace, the estimated time for advancing all the tech needed for new FullDive equipment is cut down to a year and a half. If they work together and there is a natural synergy between the two of them, I'd bet on it being one year.
Again though, how long it will take to code the game is beyond me. It would be a miracle if it was done in the same time as the tech development.
-Argo
Subject: Refund
Date: October 16, 2022
The coding shouldn't be too bad. He said he was working on SAO for ten years, but admitted that the start was rough because he was learning the languages he needed to make the game. Now that he knows what he's doing it shouldn't take anywhere near as long as it did. If he needs to make it bigger though, I'm not sure. Maybe he'll be done with the coding in a couple of years?
-Kirito
Subject: "Launch Day"
Date: November 6, 2022
And so the intended release of SAO goes by, and without a single slip of info about how anything has been in the past three weeks. This is frustrating, to say the least.
-Argo
Subject: "Launch Day"
Date: November 6, 2022
All we can do is wait, right?
-Kirito
Subject: Collaborator
Date: November 18, 2022
Okay, so this isn't much, but it's something. Kayaba is working with Takeru Higa.
They went to the same college together, and Kayaba has said at least once that Takeru is his equal - or the closest thing to it - in their generation. Apparently they were both working on FullDive technology in the past, but Kayaba finished his far before Takeru could. According to Kayaba, this was only because Takeru's design was far more complex. Hopefully this means that they have some sort of basis for the technology they need to achieve to get everything done as quickly as possible.
-Argo
Subject: MMO Recommendation?
Date: November 18, 2022
Yeah, Takeru is definitely a genius in the world of engineering. If he's working with Kayaba that can only mean good things.
This is kind of random, but are there any games you still play? I tried to go back to my old mouse and keyboard games, but nothing feels the same after SAO. I have other ways to pass the time, but I'm a gamer at heart...
-Kirito
Subject: MMO Recommendation
Date: November 18, 2022
I was having a similar problem at first, but then I found that multitasking was enough to hold my attention. Looking for anything about SAO on one monitor and playing an MMO on another is enough for me. If you're looking for a specific recommendation, I recommend Chronicles of Elyria. It's a few years old, but I still find the design of the game to be very well done. Pretty solid graphics for something six years old, too. If you end up liking it enough to play it, I'd appreciate it if you used my friend code - 554A60 - to get me some free stuff.
-Argo
Subject: Username/Server?
Date: November 19, 2022
That will probably hold me over for a while. Thanks.
And you're right - for a game made in 2016, it still holds up really well to the newer games. I've never seen a game where your in-game reputation carried so much weight... To even be banned from cities if you have a bad reputation is pretty intense.
Um... it isn't weird for me to ask what server you play on and what your username is, is it?
-Kirito
Subject: Username/Server
Date: November 19, 2022
It isn't weird, but the way you asked makes it weird. Take a wild guess on both of those and you'll be set.
-Argo
Subject: The Aincrad Journal?
Date: November 19, 2022
Right... Sorry, and thank you. Err... if you don't mind playing that game with me, should you just give me all of the info about SAO there?
-Kirito
Subject: The Aincrad Journal
Date: November 19, 2022
I could do that, but it's easier to catalog all of the info in email. I'll tell you little stuff, but anything major will be over email.
-Argo
Subject: Tech Upgrades
Date: April 3, 2023
It's official. Kayaba is a god.
It was just announced that Kayaba is all set to start working on the NerveGear 2.0 - the name is still up in the air, so I'll call it that for now. Takeru - the person Kayaba brought in to help - claimed to have only assisted on a few things. If he isn't being modest, then Kayaba made amazing technological advances one after the other in only half a year. Kayaba is now working on SAO, claiming that the NerveGear 2.0 shouldn't take him longer than a month to make and that he wants to prioritize coding.
At this rate, we might be playing SAO by the end of the year.
-Argo
Subject: Tech Upgrades
Date: April 3, 2023
Takeru is probably being modest... it seems like him. But either way, that's still great news.
-Kirito
Subject: Bleeding and Archery
Date: June 15, 2023
Finally have some details about the new combat system.
The biggest thing is that bleeding damage has been implemented. If you stay in combat after getting hit with something that would cut through your armor or hits your unarmored skin, you take damage over time. The severity of the wound directly translates to the amount of damage you take. You only stop bleeding when you're out of combat for a full minute, or your health gets topped off. So if you get run through with something, it won't just deal massive damage. It's basically a death sentence without using a healing crystal. The same goes for dismemberment. It isn't just an inconvenience now - it's a serious threat.
On top of that, they're finally adding in ranged combat. But the tradeoff to not needing to be in a mob's face is that you have to actually aim yourself. If you also need to take the wind into account for accurate shots, it'll be pretty damn impressive to have someone successfully shooting off arrows one after another and hitting their intended target.
Subject: Bleeding and Archery
Date: June 15, 2023
Oh good. I can't wait to get shot in the back by a novice in a raid. I'm sure after a few months it'll be really useful, but until then I think I'm just going to opt out of raids that have anyone using a bow. Especially if I would need to use a healing crystal every time it happened. And if the arrow doesn't just disappear and I need to take it out of my back before I can use the crystal? Yeah, no thank you.
-Kirito
Subject: Griefing
Date: August 1, 2023
You're going to love this one.
Remember how about halfway through the beta there was a group of people trolling newbies outside the Starting City, killing them whenever they left? Now they can just do that in any city they want, as long as they don't have a town guard see them. And they won't even turn orange if that happens. If the guard sees them the guard will go berserk and kill the aggressor, but if they're smart about it every town is dangerous. Towns are no longer safe zones - they're only monster-free zones.
-Argo
Subject: Safe Zones?
Date: August 1, 2023
You know I was the player that put an end to that griefing, right? And now you're telling me that it can happen anywhere? Is there any place that's still safe?
-Kirito
Subject: Safe Zones
Date: August 1, 2023
Yeah, actually. Inn rooms are still completely safe. It makes them actually have a point, instead of just running into town and logging off wherever, and not thinking about the twenty minutes it would take for your avatar to disappear.
-Argo
Subject: Safe Zones
Date: August 1, 2023
Well, that's reassuring at least...
-Kirito
Subject: Raid Nerfs
Date: October 26, 2023
He's cutting down the raid size to 24. Apparently he liked the switching mechanic we figured out, but thought it was too strong to have in a 48-man raid. And he dropped the total party size to 4. Again, trying to nerf the switching mechanic without removing it entirely. People will have to be a lot more intelligent about when they switch, especially with the bleed mechanic.
-Argo
Subject: Raid Nerfs
Date: October 26, 2023
Switching was pretty OP. Basically doing it whenever you wanted, taking next to no damage if any at all, and confusing the mob so that you got a free hit on it? That needed to be nerfed some way or another.
-Kirito
Subject: Happy Holidays
Date: December 25, 2023
Merry Christmas. Your present is Kayaba making clearing harder for you.
Instead of heading towards the tower to progress through the floors, Kayaba made it so that only the floors with field-bosses have an obvious entrance to the tower. All other floors, except for the first floor, have the entrance to the tower hidden. He's forcing us to completely explore every nook and cranny of each floor before we can move on to the next. I think this is a pretty smart move, but it'll make climbing Aincrad even more difficult.
-Argo
Subject: Happy Holidays
Date: December 25, 2023
Merry Christmas.
-Kirito
Subject: Chaining Sword Skills
Date: January 31, 2024
I have another update on combat. You're able to chain certain sword skills back to back if you're fast enough.
Kayaba made it so that when doing sword skills, the delay will kick in half a second later - so that you have enough time to get into the initial position of the chain skill. You need to figure out what skills will chain, but that makes some pretty reliable burst damage possible. It comes with a steep price. The delay of all the skills you chain together is added up, and you're stuck for that full delay in the end. And apparently the chain has a cool-down. You can't use the full chain every time each of the chain's skills are all off cool-down.
This should make PvE combat even easier, and using sword skills in PvP could be a little bit less suicidal - if you actually hit a full chain. Otherwise you're just as screwed as you were before.
-Argo
Subject: Chaining Sword Skills
Date: January 31, 2024
If you can chain different skills from the same initial skill, it'll make the system even more complex. And it would really force you to work through every skill, rather than just using whatever your hardest hitting skill is. You would really need a good understanding of every skill you have to make the most of the chain.
I like it.
-Kirito
Subject: AI Upgrades
Date: April 26, 2024
Breaking news: Kayaba is still a god.
They have the tiniest bit of delay right now, but apparently if you ask an NPC anything game related they'll try to answer you to the best of their knowledge. And every NPC knows only what it should know, depending on its job. If you ask an NPC about mobs, a guard will know a lot more than any other NPC. These NPCs will also be able to hold a conversation with a player. Allegedly the player should have no idea that it's an NPC, besides the color of its cursor, once Kayaba is done.
-Argo
Subject: Hello?
Date: April 28, 2024
You still alive? You haven't been on Chronicles of Elyria for a few days either... That's kind of alarming when I consider you never going a day without playing it.
-Argo
Subject: Sorry
Date: May 2, 2024
I've been busy the past week. My family had an all-expenses paid vacation to Osaka, and I forgot my phone at home. I also didn't have access to a computer... it was rough on my gamer soul.
That sounds really cool though. It also sounds like the game is a lot more noob-friendly that way.
-Kirito
Subject: Kendo?
Date: May 2, 2024
What were you busy doing in Osaka? Winning the Interprefectural Kendo Championship?
-Argo
Subject: Kendo
Date: May 2, 2024
Well... not exactly. But for my age I don't think second is too bad... right?
-Kirito
Subject: PvP Monster?
Date: May 2, 2024
Wow. I remember you said you had other ways to pass the time besides gaming, but I never considered you becoming a monster in PvP as a way to pass the time. Congrats.
-Argo
Subject: PvP Monster
Date: May 2, 2024
Haha, yeah. Hopefully the NerveGear 2.0 will actually let most of that transfer into SAO skill.
-Kirito
Subject: Mob AI
Date: July 21, 2024
Kayaba put the same work he did for the NPCs into mobs.
-Argo
Subject: Mob AI?
Date: July 21, 2024
What exactly does that mean?
-Kirito
Subject: Mob AI
Date: July 21, 2024
It means that if a fight between you and any mob goes on long enough, it'll learn enough about how you fight that it can change its attacks accordingly. It'll look for certain tells you have, and it'll know them better than you know them yourself. This basically means that soloing any boss is impossible, unless you can grossly overpower it. They have enough health that after a while you won't be able to do anything to them.
Also, as we climb more floors, the base knowledge of the mobs goes up. That was also confirmed with what I found today. This game is shaping up to be the most difficult skill-based game there has ever been. Not that it would apparently have any sort of affect on you, Mr. Kendo Prodigy.
-Argo
Subject: I'm NOT a Prodigy
Date: July 21, 2024
Hard work doesn't make me a prodigy... it's not like I would have gotten anywhere without hours of getting my ass handed to me. Hell, when I was starting again it took me two months to finally beat my younger sister in a match.
-Kirito
Subject: Yes You Are
Date: July 21, 2024
Even if you play it off like that, you can't deny that you're going to be better at the game than the average person.
And what did you mean by starting again?
-Argo
Subject: No I'm Not
Date: July 21, 2024
I guess that's true.
After it was announced that SAO was going to be delayed, I sort of got really frustrated. Frustrated to the point where I needed to vent my frustration. My sister was complaining about nobody being able to keep up with her in practice, so I offered to have a few matches with her. She whooped me, and then I realized that I could pass the time with kendo instead of online gaming. Not that that lasted very long...
-Kirito
Subject: You Definitely Are
Date: July 21, 2024
So what you're telling me is that you started kendo a year and a half ago?
-Argo
Subject: I'm Not!
Date: July 21, 2024
I started kendo when I was ten, but I never took it seriously and stopped after half a year... So I guess I only took it seriously for the past year and a half, yeah.
-Kirito
Subject: Case in Point
Date: July 21, 2024
Prodigy.
-Argo
Subject: Fine. You Win
Date: July 21, 2024
I give up.
-Kirito
Subject: NerveGear 2.0
Date: September 14, 2024
Kayaba actually wants to call it the NerveGear 2.0. Which, by the way, he started developing. We might be able to play SAO by the end of the month, judging by his monstrous speed for everything else.
-Argo
Subject: Debt?
Date: September 14, 2024
That's great news. Since we might be playing SAO again soon, I have to ask you something. Do you still want that 5,000 col?
-Kirito
Subject: Debt
Date: September 14, 2024
Well... if the monetary system is still the same I certainly wouldn't be against it. We'll get to see that on launch day.
-Argo
Subject: Debt
Date: September 14, 2024
I'll still pay you then. I feel like without all of these updates I wouldn't know what to do.
-Kirito
Subject: Alpha Testing
Date: October 1, 2024
SAO is officially in alpha testing again, and Kayaba said that they're only going to be doing the alpha testing. Once that's over, there will likely be a two week break between then and the release of the game.
-Argo
Subject: Discount?
Date: October 19, 2024
You got an email about being able to preorder the game at a discount, right?
-Kirito
Subject: Discount
Date: October 19, 2024
Yeah. Smart move, considering that he made everyone who played in the beta wait two years. The game is set to launch on November 8. If the new SAO is even half as perfect as the alpha testers were claiming, I think I might be able to forgive Kayaba for making us wait two years.
-Argo
Subject: Username?
Date: November 7, 2024
I'm going to keep Kirito as my username. Still going with Argo?
-Kirito
Subject: Username
Date: November 7, 2024
Yeah, I'm still going with Argo.
If it's still the same as it was in the beta, we need to see each other to send a friend request. So we need somewhere to meet if you're insistent on paying that col.
If the Starting City is anything like it was in the beta, meet me where The Ardham Lodge used to be. With any luck it'll still be there, but if it isn't then hopefully the general location is still accessible and the same.
-Argo
Subject: Friend Request
Date: November 7, 2024
I'll be there to send you a friend request, but not because I have a debt to pay off.
-Kirito
A/N: Hello, and welcome to Aincrad Reborn.
Thank you for making it all the way to the end, and for reading these notes. Rest assured, the format of any future chapters will not be using this format. This was an email chain established by Kirito and Argo, and many of the mechanics discussed in the emails are the actual mechanics that SAO is going to be using in this fic.
I can't remember anyone starting a story like this before, so I at least get points for originality, right?
For anyone that is curious, Chronicles of Elyria is an actual MMO that's in production. (Hopefully they're okay with me using the name...) Anything I said in those two emails where it is mentioned is taken straight from the game's website. I recommend you all check it out. There aren't any classes, you choose what skills you want to grind, and you can actually leave an impact in the game. They also have a really well-done system involving death, and eventually there's a permadeath for your character. But when that permadeath happens, you are reborn (for a price). Your new body will allow you to get your skills back quicker and advance further than your previous life.
It sounds like a lot of fun - to me, at least. If you want to check it out and you end up signing up, my friend code really is 554A60 - though I'm honestly not sure right now if it does much of anything.
Anyhow, thanks again for reading, and expect another chapter pretty soon. I'll try to get a chapter out either every week, or every two weeks. Hopefully the former, but probably the latter to start. Once I get in a rhythm it'll probably be every week.
Ah, right. I should probably mention that I don't own the rights to Sword Art Online or Chronicles of Elyria.